This invention relates to a multi-color marking pen assembly, and particularly to a marking pen assembly wherein plural marking pens can be used in combination, e.g., to simultaneously apply plural strips of colorant to a work surface.
A marking pen is an implement that a person can grasp in his hand to apply liquid colorant to a work surface (e.g., a sheet of paper) to produce colored images. The pen usually comprises an elongated tubular barrel containing a reserve supply of liquid colorant, and a color applicator tip projecting from one end of the barrel for transferring colorant onto the work surface. The person can manipulate the marking pen to move the applicator tip back and forth on the work surface, to produce colored lines or colored patches of various length and shape. Different marking pens (having different colorants) can be used to produce multi-colored pictures or images.
In some cases it is necessary, or desirable to produce parallel colorant strips on the work surface. For Example, it may be desirable to produce an image in which a relatively light color forms the major part of the image, while a relatively dark color out-lines the image (as a border). In some instances a relatively dark colorant can be used with a relatively light colorant to produce shading or transition from one image to another.
Parallel colorant strips can be useful in colored perspective drawings. In some sign lettering the individual letters are multi-colored to provide a more eye-catching sign. A rainbow pattern is sometimes used for visual effect.
Under conventional practice it is necessary to use one marking pen for one colorant strip and a second pen for an adjacent colorant strip. When separate marking pens are used it is difficult to maintain the desired parallelism between the colorant strips. Inevitably the individual colorant strips deviate or waiver to out of parallelism. The problem becomes even more difficult when it is desired to produce three or more parallel colorant strips.
The preset invention relates to a marking pen assembly wherein plural marking pens can be used in combination to simultaneously apply plural strips of colorant to a work surface. The marking pens are detachably connected together so that the color applicator tips on all of the pens are in a common transverse plane, such that when the marking pen assembly in manipulated on a work surface the applicator tips simultaneously produce plural strips of different colorants on the work surface.
In preferred practice of the invention the marking pen assembly includes a colorant applicator that fits over the assembled marking pens to provide a continuous marking surface for applying different colorants to the work surface. When the marking pen assembly is moved over the work surface the continuous marking surface on the applicator forms a rainbow of different parallel colors.
The different colorants can be different shades of a given hue and/or entirely different hues. Any number of marking pens can be used together (within reason) to simultaneously produce parallel colorant strips, e.g., two, three or four marking pens.
The different marking pens can be detachably connected together, so that in some cases the pens can be separated for use individually. Any given marking pen can be used alone or in combination with any other similarly constructed marking pen.